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I' m confused. Who am I telling that I have HIV (or am HIV)? Why am I telling them?

I guess when I told my friends and family I said I've got HIV. When my doctor told me she said. Your test came back positive. Otherwise I'm not like Annie Lennox walking around town wearing a positive tee shirt.

This has got to be the most exciting poll EVAH. The only acceptable option would be I gots teh AIDS (or I am afflicted by the pooper flu when addressing the issue in a formal environment), everything else is a euphemism.

Logged

"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

I've heard "I'm HIV" in Detroit. I was presenting about HIV there and when I said I was positive, a guy said, "You don't look HIV." It reminds me of that computer commercial I can't stand in which the actors say " I'm a PC." and I think, the client paid for that?

the phrases "I've got HIV" and "I've got AIDS" have been interchangeable, and boringly routine, for me after nearly 20 years now. Which one I use really just depends on how much shock value I'm looking for with my disclosure.

I've never heard someone say "I am HIV" -- would you say "I am cancer"? No, if you don't want to say "+" you would say "I have HIV"

Otherwise I fail to understand the importance.

Lots of people say "I'm hiv". I've seen it here in the forums many, many times. There used to be a character on the UK soap opera who had hiv and used to say "I'm hiv" and I've heard it other times on telly shows and in films. My bf used to say "I'm hiv" when we first got back together until I talked to him about it. He understood what I was getting at and stopped using that phrase.

And you're right, it doesn't make sense and you never hear people say "I'm cancer". Why it's done with hiv has always been a mystery to me.

I suppose in real life I usually say "I've got hiv" more than I say "I'm hiv positive", but thinking about it, I probably use the latter more than the former when writing online, or I just say "I'm positive" or "I'm a pozzie".

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts